The 2008 predictions weren’t the most accurate. Let’s see how we do for 2009.

  • The Android platform will be absolutely huge. With Motorola, Sony Ericsson and a raft of Tier 2 manufacturers signed up, it will become _the _mobile platform from the mid to high end. Ignore the HTC G1, that’s just a rough first attempt by one manufacturer. 
  • Despite Android, iPhone will remain big. There is always that 10% of the market who like paying extra for “luxury” brands
  • SaaS ecommerce providers will go mainstream. The idea of only selling locally will become ridiculous. Everyone who can send something by mail-order will end up online. SaaS will be utterly compelling for small biz like this.
  • Facebook will continue to grow with people who neither know nor care what a Social Network is but want to keep in touch with people they know
  • Facebook Connect will be everywhere
  • Investors in pre-revenue Web2 companies will start losing patience and grab the management reins. In most cases this will fail
  • Nice-to-have webapps that cost anything to run will disappear at an ever increasing rate
  • The various Irish Government “throw money at VCs” schemes will continue to fail miserably
  • Nothing will change in the structure of Enterprise Ireland and how it funds companies
  • The Incubation Centres in Ireland will continue to be a source of a large number of successful start-ups
  • Twitter will be sold for a lot less than expected as they fail to execute on a business model
  • Smart BigCorps will hoover up tons of start-ups for petty cash and start building for the economic recovery
  • All the Twitter clones will disappear
  • All the major SocNets will add Twittter-like functionality
  • At least one global location aware mobile SocNet will get decent traction
  • Garmin and TomTom will be beaten up by GPS-enabled phones
  • Google will make a play to own the yellow pages space using Google Maps. Everyone, including your chimney-sweep, will end up there
  • Wifi will start becoming the norm in mid-range point-and-shoot cameras and everyone, including your mum, will start photo-sharing
  • The proliferation of local review sites will end and a few big players will own the space in Europe
  • More APIs will become pay-for as “Free” becomes a dirty word
  • Sony will file for the Japanese equivalent of Chapter 11, sell off everything that is non-core, exit all JVs and continue to struggle to define itself in the 21st Century
  • Sony won’t create the PS4, a low-cost perfectly open platform, built around the web, media from-anywhere to-anywhere and open standards
  • Sony won’t create the PSPhone  
  • BlueRay will remain a perfect solution to a problem which doesn’t exist
  • The Nintendo DSi will become the de-facto MP3 player for kids aged 3-15
  • The DSi will be the catalyst to turn kids from consumers into generators
  • Someone will build a GSM module for the DSi
  • Someone will build a VOIP app for the entire Nintendo DS range
  • Someone will provide solid internet access on the entire Cork-Dublin train line
  • The Semantic web will remain something people write and talk about only
  • The fastest growing webapp of 2009 hasn’t been written yet
  • More Irish start-up founders will move to Silicon Valley
  • 2009 will be the hardest year for Irish start-ups since 2002